I chose a few complementary Easter fabrics. I used cream colour felt sandwiched in between the fabrics to give the bunnies firmness and a quilted effect. Each bunny consists of two layers of cotton quilting fabric and a layer of cream colour felt sandwiched inside the fabric. The garland is viewable from both sides this way.

After the layers were sandwiched, I traced the silhouettes onto the fabric using a disappearing sewing marker. Make sure there is plenty of space in between each traced rabbit. Cut each rabbit out roughly keeping at least a 1″ border around your entire marker line. With my sewing machine, I straight stitched with purple thread along my marker line of the outline of the rabbit. I wanted the purple stitching to stand out against the fabric colour. I used my free motion quilting foot for this with my feed dogs in the lower position. TIP: I wore rubber garden gloves to get a good grip on the fabric as I maneuvered it around the silhouette tracing.

I then used pinking shears to cut zigzags around the edge of each stitched line. You will be cutting through 3 layers of the sandwich.

I ended up with 9 bunnies in total.

Use a dampened cloth to dab gently onto the fabric to instantly erase the marker line. You can see here where the marker line has disappeared around the ears here.

I used a length of RicRac for the garland string (which I knew was the exact length I needed for my fireplace mantle) and then arranged the bunnies so the fabric styles and colours flowed well, the rabbits were evenly spaced apart, and I turned half of the rabbits in the opposite direction to balance it off visually. Pin them in place to the ric rac and take it to the sewing machine where you will tack each bunny in two places onto the ric rac. Clip off all your stray threads.

and Enjoy!

I did this project far in advance of Easter, so my easter mantle display isn’t done here. BUT I have some great plans for that! Stay tuned!

My sister mentioned to my dad awhile ago that she loved aprons. This got me thinking about aprons and I did a search to find some cute vintage style aprons that I could figure out the pattern myself. I found a few good inspirations and designed this reversible apron. Making it reversible was the most difficult part since I wasn’t working with a pattern telling me which seams to sew first. I had to think it through to completion numerous times in my head.

Front Side

Back Side

I added details like a ruffle at the bottom and a red peekaboo seam at the top. I made the neck strap adjustable by adding two buttonholes at different lengths, and added a mother of pearl button. My final detail was embroidering my daughters initials onto it. I made it pretty small so she will be able to wear it all throughout childhood into her teen years. This should make her want to cook and bake, which will make Grandma VERY happy!

One day I sat down and decided to practice my crochet stitches, and working on keeping proper stitch count, and keeping my edges straight, but as the piece progressed, it morphed into a purse. I was viewing You Tube videos as I worked, and decided to try different stitches. I thought the fan stitch would make a nice detail on the back of the purse, and I would do a different type fan stitch on the flap of the purse is a coordinating colour.

I ended up with this.

I left long tails, so I could use them to sew side seams together.

This is the back side of the purse with the decorative fan detail. When I crochet, I only hook into the front of the loops, which leaves a decorative line on every other row.

If you have crochet experience, then you can understand this. I made this with a 40 chain base, and did 24 rows of single crochet. I then did two rows of fans. I then did another 9 rows of single crochet stitches, and then switched to grey. I did one row of single crochet in the grey, then did 5 rows of the fan stitches. This isn’t meant to be a crochet tutorial, so I don’t want to go into detail about stitches, etc.

I folded the rectangle in three so only the grey fans or the flap of the purse. I used a large eyed needle to sew the edges together with the long yarn tails I had left. I also crocheted a long strap (5 chain base and did half double crochets) to the length I needed and sewed that onto the very top edge of the purse.

I wanted to sew a very modern fabric lining in it. I had some Michael Miller bird fabric that would add the edgy touch I was looking for. I measured the interior width by the depth of the purse, and added 5/8″ for a upper hem line. I also cut the back and front lining in a separate piece, so both sides would have the birds facing upright. I also wanted a very structured look so the crochet wouldn’t droop as it hung on my shoulder. I used a very heavy and stiff gauge of fusible interfacing on the lining.

I ironed on the interfacing leaving the top hem allowance to be sewn over the edge and I serged the bottom part of the lining together, again to make sure the birds on both sides were sitting upwards.

I then serged the sides together. Double check to make sure the lining will fit nicely inside the crochet part of the purse.

I handstitched (which is like a four letter word to a lazy sewer like myself!! I grumbled the whole time I did it!) with black thread the very upper edge of the lining to the crochet purse. Make sure it is just below the lip of the crochet. The thread buries itself into the yarn, so the black thread is not viewable on the outside.

The heavy interfacing gives the piece such a nice structured body. I love the modern touch of the fabric too.

I will be making a customized lampwork glass button to hold the flap down on the front.

I love the acid green yarn with the grey. It is times like this that I love being the craft addict I am. I had all of these materials hanging around the house, and now it is constructed into a beautiful modern piece!

This purse evolved without a pattern. I designed as I went along. I am so pleased with the final product, so I encourage you to do the same. Start with browsing You Tube for some crochet tutorials!

Last fall, I was contacted by a publisher about my fabric birds that are so hot on Pinterest. She asked to use my photographs of my projects for a sewing book they were publishing called “Fabric Stash Cuties – Pretty Birds”. I agreed, and I ended up sewing a few more fabric variations of the birds too.

The pattern is so easy to follow and this is so easy to make from your scraps of fabric. The free PDF download is on the sidebar of their blog.

Aside from Pinterest getting me stoked for crafting, I am perusing You Tube quite a bit lately too. I found this fabulous two part video of a tutorial on how to make an Owl Crochet Purse.

Here is the second half of the video.

I picked up by crochet needle and just followed along. This is my final product below! I am so pleased with it. So is my daughter. I am putting items in and taking them out of the purse to teach her the word IN and OUT.

I printed two copies of the file onto cardstock and cut each of them out to glue them back to back. I used fishing line hang them, so the fishing line is embedded in the centre of the layers. I hung three per line, but in hindsight I should have staggered them more. I used a paper border punch to make edgings on some of the cards. I beaded red and silver glitter glue around the edges of the cards.

For my daughters first birthday party, I was inspired by a pin that I saw that said ”Alice in ONEderland” and was so excited that I was on the ball enough to start planning the theme plenty in advance to make some props and crafts. The party was to be held 2000 miles away from us though, and we would be travelling by plane. So any craft had to be carefully planned as to what I could purchase/make here, and what had to be done there.

COSTUMES

First of all, I purchased costumes on eBay. My husband was the Mad Hatter, I was the Queen of Hearts, and my daughter was Alice of course. Her costume was difficult to find, and I did not have the time to sew one myself. They don’t sell too many Alice costumes in 12 month sizes, and the ones they do, are not very nice. I finally found ONE on eBay and had to stalk the site for 6 days to make sure I didn’t get outbid. I won it for $6 total! It did need some cleaning, starching, and a few repairs, but I got it! Our costumes were from the Johnny Depp version of Alice in Wonderland movie, but only because they looked great, and they are for sale everywhere. I am so happy we went all the way to paint our faces too. It added so much to the costume.

I encouraged guests to dress a part of the movie. Most did not dress up, but of course after they got to the party, and saw us with our faces painted and fully costumed, they had their regrets! Luckily I had some props for them!

INVITATIONS

I ended up piecing together lo-res Alice in Wonderland graphics and recreating this invitation with Photoshop.

CARD SOLDIERS

I wanted Large Stand up Card Soldiers around the yard which I had seen some great ones on Pinterest. I bought red bristol board to cut out the hearts. I printed out large serif numbers to make stencils to trace onto the red bristol board for the numbers. It was a task to get the scale right, but I eventually got it right! The faces were made of different size hearts. The soldiers needed to be stiff enough to stand up, so I used white foam board. I used thick metal BBQ skewers taped to the back on the foam board so I could stake them into the dirt. The feet were folded hearts.

I placed three guards on the walkway to the door. These ended up being one of my favorite decorations of the party.

BUNTING BANNER

I made one of my custom printable banners in Photoshop to make a Happy Birthday banner. I printed it onto cardstock, cut it out and strung it onto organza ribbon.

CAKE TOPPERS & TABLESCAPE

I could not find good enough resolution graphics online, so I ended up endlessly working in photoshop to recreate Alice in Wonderland graphics. I took screenshots from the movie I watched on my computer, and colouring books, then retraced the graphics into photoshop, and painfully repainted each and every colour. I ended up with full scaleable files vector files from the exact scenes I wanted. For the Cake Toppers, I printed 2 copies of each individual character onto cardstock, cut them out in a circle and glued each side to a bamboo skewer. These ended up as my two sided cake toppers.

I had other table décor characters which I printed on cardstock, cut out, and glued a traingle paper stand to the back of them so they could stand up on the table.

PARTY HATS

I made party hats with a hat pattern I found online. I printed off digital scrapbook paper in fun Alice in Wonderland type crazy patterns onto thick cardstock. Each hat can be printed on a 8.5″ x 11″ page. I cut them out and glued them into a cone shape. I also printed onto cardstock a character, and used crepe paper to make a circular ruffle, and glued that onto the front of the hat. I glued a pompom to the top. For the bottom edge, I sewed/baste stitched down the centre of a long strip of crepe streamer paper. I then gathered it into a ruffle. I folded the strip lengthwise in half. At this point the thread should be on one edge of the folded strip, and I hot glued that onto the bottom of the hat. I then took elastic thread and glued it to the hat for a chin strap to hold it on one’s head.

PHOTO OP BOARD

I wanted to have a Photo Op Board, where the faces of the characters were missing, and guests could put their face into the hole. This was a blast of fun taking photos of each guest in the Photo Op Board! A huge hit at the party!

Getting a graphic to be printed in huge format and high resolution was impossible! So I ended up watching the whole movie carefully picking any scene that had 2-3 characters together, their faces roughly the same size, had a good background scene and all of them looking forward towards the camera! I ended up taking a screenshot of the movie at the exact ONE frame that had those criteria! I then retraced out the lines into a vector format, and repainted each and every colour similar to the movie colours. This took forever, but I now have a scaleable graphic scene of the movie. I bought 6 foam boards. I taped them together into one huge board with thick masking tape making sure that they were firmly tight together. I divided my HUGE graphic into 10 clips, and I printed my graphic at a professional printing place on 10 11″x17″ colour laser printed pages. I then spray glued each page onto the giant foam board. Please note, this huge printing size was necessary because I had to make sure that a human size face could fit into the cut out animated face. Measuring and calculating that was a pain too!

I finished it off with taping a plastic tablecloth to the bottom of the graphic to hide their legs. I then strung it up where the faces where at standing level, and I could take photos of them, which ended up being on our front porch. I took photos of every guest and sent the pictures to them as a thank you keepsake from the party.

This project was a lot of work (mostly work for the scene selection and photo editing) but totally worth it for all the laughs and excitement it created at the party! I will be selling the graphics I designed if you would like to have an Alice in Wonderland Party too. Email me to inquire.

DIRECTION SIGNS

I love my parents house. After living there for 60 years, there is always some junk that will create a great craft project if you look hard enough. THIS next project was thought of and completed by my husband!!! He was so excited to help out with decorations after he saw some of my projects coming together. He found some old wood in the garage, and painted these signs. He also did all the work with getting my giant Tea Party graphic printed too. These turned out fantastic as we nailed these to a tree at the bottom of the driveway. All the neighbors walking along the street had a blast peeking in on our party and instantly knew it was an Alice In Wonderland party!

It really made for some nice portraits of us.

Speaking of finding stuff in that house, I ended up finding an old 1909 antique book in our basement library of Alice in Wonderland!!! What a find!!

OTHER STUFF

For my flower arrangement, I purchased a red and white rose bouquet that was available from Costco. I thought it totally suited the “Painting the Roses Red” theme!

We had both the classic Disney Alice in Wonderland movie and the new Johnny Depp Alice in Wonderland movie playing on tvs in the house during the party for the people who had not seen the movies.

I ordered antique style Alice in Wonderland playing cards on eBay. When they arrived, they were much smaller than I had thought. I ended up scanning them, and reprinting them at proper playing card size. I then cut them out and scattered them on the buffet table.

My sister had found a few Alice in Wonderland style teapots at a garage sale. They really added some nice flair to the tablescape.

I had an old set of playing cards that I took all the “hearts” cards from, and paperhole punched the tops to run a red organza ribbon through to make a hanging garland at the front door.

I had some quotes from the movie printed on random printed signs around the house.

Ideas that I had, but vetoed (as time and costs were getting over my budget) were purchasing 10 plastic pink flamingoes on eBay to place in the front lawn.

Now that you see all the crafting I did for the party, I was so thankful that I had my mother prepare ALL the food for the party. The food almost never crossed my mind except to tell her make tea party style foods! Cooking is not my favorite thing to do, crafting is obviously! Thanks mom!

I had sooo much fun organizing and dreaming up crafts for this party theme! We got lots of photographs for my daughter to remember her first birthday. Next year is going to be hard to top this!

My sister is an amazing knitter! She only took it up a few years ago, but her skills are really incredible. Her stitches are perfect tension. Now I do not have the patience for knitting at all. It is just too slow. I first learned crochet stitches when I was about 10 years old. I only was taught the double crochet stitch, and my squares were way out of square, and the big holes in the big stitches didn’t look nice at all, so I never took it up. But darn Pinterest has gotten me curious! So after Pinteresting some stunning crochet projects, and learning different stitches on You Tube, I am making really beautiful projects lately! Yeah, like I really needed another craft to take up! Luckily my sister gives me all her scrap yarn!

This is my first attempt at lace crochet patterns. I found the crochet heart pattern video tutorial is on YouTube from Maggie Weldon. This woman’s crochet channel is very good, I advise you subscribe to her.

Most of my hearts I made were from her pattern in the video. The heart above, I did one extra round of half double crochet stitches, and it really added a lot to the look.

I am a complete crochet beginner, so please have the courage to try these beautiful hearts to make other Valentines Day crafts. After making 9 of these lace hearts for the garland, I really got a good grasp of crochet, and was making each of them in about 10 minutes or so.

The red hearts were made with a thinner cotton yarn which really added a lace type look to the hearts. The white hearts were with the cheap Red Heart Yarn brand Super Saver white yarn. It was easier to crochet with the white yarn, but they don’t look nearly as dainty and defined as the red ones.

After making 9 hearts, I made two small hearts from another tutorial from Maggie Weldon.

I decided to starch the hearts before I strung them. I made a very strong solution of about 70% starch to 30% water. I soaked all the hearts, and laid them out to dry overnight on a towel. I wanted them very flat and stiff on the garland. Then I just chained together all the hearts.

I chained a loop into the garland so I could hang it securely and taught from the command hooks at the sides of my fireplace.

A rule I really tried to follow in my crocheting was to ensure that EVERY stitch is perfect. Make each stitch the same size, keep the tension consistent, and if you make a mistake, UNDO it fully, and redo it perfectly. Don’t be lazy. Because I followed this rule, I am so proud of this project, and want to do more. Also, I will be excited to bring this out to display every Valentines Day and tell my daughter “I made this!”

I know the countdown to Valentines is here! Valentines Day is also our anniversary, so I have a lot more motivation to deck the house out. Here is my Paper Heart Garland tutorial.

This was made by printing pages of digital scrapbook Valentines paper on my home printer. I printed the designs onto regular 110lb cardstock in 8.5″ x 11″ size. I used Photoshop to adjust the scale of patterns. I printed each side of the cardstock with a complementary design. I then used a paper cutter to slice the paper into strips that were 1.75″ thick x 8″ long. I stapled together two strips to make the tops of the hearts.

At this point, you should pre-bend the hearts into their shape. I used the corner of our coffee table to run the paper along to arch the top of the heart out, then turned it over and pre-bent the lower curving part of the heart in the opposite arch.

Once you have the curves of the arches bent into each heart, lay them into flat strips again, and then use an exacto knife to cut 3/8″ slits at the widest part of the hearts so I could string through a 3/8″ pink organza ribbon through the hearts. You need to pre-bend the hearts before you cut the slits otherwise you will probably tear them up when you curl the paper, AND your curls wont be even. I learned the hard way.

I then stapled the bottom tips of the hearts together, and I strung the hearts onto the ribbon and hung it up.

Another tip for this type of garland is to hang it where you will primarily be viewing it along the side. ie. along a hallway. When you look at the garland straight on, the paper disappears, and the patterned effect is lost, as you see.

I had to make one of the ornament ball wreaths I had been seeing around. I purchased a 55 ornament ball set from Big Lots for $15 for this project. I cut open a wire hanger at the top with wire cutters. Then form the hangar into a perfect circle. Before I started stringing on the balls directly to the wire, I hot glued to secure the ball caps more permanently to the ball. Otherwise the balls will pop off the caps easily after you have made the whole wreath. Then just start stringing them on the wire. Take care to not get all of the same colour balls going toward one side of the wreath. Try to balance it out.

Make sure all the balls are snug together, then loop the end of the wire around the hook part to secure it. I then made the hook past into a small loop to hang on a suction cup hook. I hung my wreath on a mirrored back of our bar. It really sets off the wreath nicely, especially because there are halogen lights right above it to shine on those glitter balls!

This was an incredibly simple project, and $15 for the whole project is a great price!